I Think I Smell a Rat!

Most musicians would feel honored to share a stage with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, but when GoGoGo Airheart performed with Moore and four other acts in New York on November 12...

"Thurston Moore's set was just him holding his guitar against his amp," said GoGoGo bassist Ashish Vyas. "It was just feedback for 40 minutes. After him were two other 'blip blip, bleep bleep' bands. There were 250 people there to see Thurston, but by the time we were going on, there was probably about 100. I just said, 'I don't want to hear this shit anymore.' I said, 'Fuck this noise,' and started playing bass over everyone. I was playing bass with them -- I was playing these dub bass lines, but people got offended and the band stopped playing."

Vyas and drummer Andrew Robillard, guitarist/vocalist Michael Vermillion, and guitarist Ben White are traveling in support of their new release, Rats! Sing! Sing! The band has done a number of U.S. tours, but this is the first GoGoGo tour since Vyas served as the touring bassist for electronic superstars Thievery Corporation.

"It's completely different [touring with a more prominent band]," Vyas said. "In Europe, the buses are double-decker sleeper buses. We were traveling with 20 to 25 people, two buses. I didn't have to drive, I didn't even have to plug my fucking bass in....

"With [GoGoGo], we have two seats in the front of the van, two bench seats in the back. The comfort is there, but the difference is I'm doing a lot of driving, and I'm beat. This morning we did a radio show a few hours ago, but we had to leave Milwaukee, and it was a six-hour drive [to the next show]. We got to bed at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. and got up at 8:30 a.m. and just drove," Vyas said during a phone call from Minneapolis.